Although a limited edition may grab attention, it is not a long-term strategy, says Dave Timothy
Following the Royal Wedding, retail discount baskets were a graveyard of brands that had launched their own ‘limited edition’ products to make the most of Kate and Wills mania. While they looked great before the event, once the last tent had been removed from the Mall these products felt rather outdated.
The same will be true for the 2012 Olympics. Supermarket shelves will groan with Olympic fare. Any brand with a strong relevance to sport, winning or London must be thinking about how they can benefit from the bandwagon.
But is it worth it? By their very nature, limited editions are tactical. They can be a great way of tapping into a specific event or zeitgeist and an opportunity to shout about a product. But what does this type of promotion tell us about the brand itself? They are great for creating short-term gains, but don’t limited editions also have the potential to create confusion about what a brand stands for? Do consumers keep buying once the limited edition has run out? Wouldn’t it be better to also think more about the long-term health of our brands?
The beauty and cosmetics market is a case in point. Not long ago there was excellent differentiation in the sector with fewer, stronger brands, clear brand colours and ownable structures, formulations and efficacy. This made the fixture easy to shop and consumers understood what each brand was delivering for them. But a look down the aisle of any supermarket or pharmacy today reveals an increasingly homogenous category with limited differentiation.
This weakness in brand identity at point of purchase has been driven in part by product diversification, with brands such as Nivea offering generic products that span numerous consumer camps like family, female, tweens, men, ‘natural’ buyers and the environmentally conscious, making it difficult to understand what they actually stand for.
In addition, for a category that depends on constant innovation to stay ahead and get noticed there have been surprisingly few memorable leaps forward in recent years in new product formulations, applications or structural and graphic design. There is a constant flow of tweaked products as major brands introduce limited editions, gift ranges, extra value packs and travel sizes etc. However these short-term fixes merely paint over some of the cracks and further cloud brand distinctiveness.
So what’s the cause of this watering down of brand distinction? A difficult economy, buoyant private label sector and price sensitivity have all led to manufacturers deciding it’s easier (and less risky) to launch limited editions or tactical brand extensions than to invest in long-term projects.
But this is a short sighted approach. Without investing in brand differentiation and values, beauty and cosmetics brands stand to lose shelf impact and consumers will forget why they chose one brand over another – buying on price instead. A recent Mintel survey states that the days when favourite beauty products were automatic replacement purchases are gone, with around 25% of shoppers claiming to shop around more to compare prices, while 16% say they use the internet more to research prices and products.
Creating an impact both on shelf and online has never been more important. Agencies that can provide insight into future trends and link to consumer insights will be ideally placed to support their clients’ innovation and research pipelines.
Take Method for example. Best known for its cleaning products but also featuring in the hand care sector, it has function, beauty and ethical values at its heart. These have driven the design of its packaging, which looks fantastic and creates its own new furrow in the marketplace. But it doesn’t just look good – its story of total recyclability also ticks the right boxes with today’s consumer who increasingly wants natural products that are also kind to the environment. The result? More retailers are stocking Method while consumers are happy to pay the premium.
If brands want to create this kind of distinction, they also need to move away from the one size fits all approach towards one with better segmentation, creating products tailored to more distinct user groups. This makes sense from a differentiation perspective as the more a product talks directly to a consumer, the more they are likely to listen. Few brands seem to being doing well at this, but Sanctuary is coming close with its distinct ranges.
There are other long-term trends that beauty and cosmetic brands are starting to wake up to and could help drive their long-term brand standout, such as borrowing from other product categories (eg cosmetic items that look like food) and vintage too.
The most important lesson to take from this though is the need to look forward and invest in a brand’s long-term future. Limited editions can be useful to grab attention and trial. But companies willing to research new relevant and long lasting trends, take a risk and deliver products with distinct brand positioning will reap the rewards. Isn’t the sector all about looking good and standing out?
